


Bound by Will

by winterune



Series: NatsumeWeek 2020 [2]
Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Family, Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Tumblr: Natsume Week, Tumblr: Natsume Week 2020, Youkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:27:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25390876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterune/pseuds/winterune
Summary: There was a club in their university that specialized in Occult Study and Natsume found himself being dragged into its premises.---Shortly after the start of Natsume's freshman year of college, he meets a youkai who seems to have some sort of connection to Reiko.
Relationships: Madara "Nyanko-sensei" & Natsume Takashi, Natsume Reiko & Other(s)
Series: NatsumeWeek 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816627
Kudos: 73





	Bound by Will

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be written for Natsumeweek, but alas, I didn't have enough time to write. However, I still plan on writing this as a series based on the prompts of the event. So, Day 2 prompt: Past/Future. 
> 
> The stories will be interconnected. Maybe not direct continuations, but each will be connected in some way to the other :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading :)

There was a club in their university that specialized in Occult Study and Natsume found himself being dragged into its premises.

It started fifteen minutes back, when Natsume came down from his lecture building to join Tanuma and Taki in the cafeteria. Someone stopped him in his tracks. Ebony eyes glinted behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

“Hey,” he said with a grin stretching from ear to ear. “Do you want to join our club?”

He then had explained in length that he was from an Occult Study club in need for new recruits because they had reached the bare minimum of members needed to form a club. A couple of their members would graduate next year, and if they hadn’t recruited any new members by then, their club would be forced to disband.

Natsume hadn’t heard of this Occult Study club. In fact, he didn’t remember seeing one when they were all showcasing their clubs and circles at the start of freshman year.

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“Takashi Natsume,” Natsume replied on instinct, regretting almost immediately that he had just told his name to a stranger that he wasn’t even sure was a human. There was a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach as the man’s grin grew.

“I’m Akihiko Chiba. You can just call me Aki. Everyone does that.”

A nickname on the first minute of their first meeting?

“Want to take a peek of our club, Natsume-kun?” The level of familiarity this man projected. Aki…senpai pointed over to the general direction of the student union center where most of the clubrooms were located.

Natsume wasn’t sure. His mind told him that something was off, that he should refuse and told him his friends were waiting, but his heart seemed to say otherwise. So he found himself nodding and Aki-senpai’s grin widened.

*******

A part of him said the club wasn’t real. That this was a scam, and if this Aki-senpai showed any signs of being or related to a _youkai_ of any sort, Natsume would hit him in the head and run for his life.

But then they finally stopped and Natsume looked up to see a ramshackle shack that looked to be an old disused storage in the middle of a copse of trees.

“Here we are,” Aki-senpai said ahead of him, reaching toward the wooden door. It shook and grated against the floor. “Welcome, to our humble abode!”

Natsume braced himself. A face or teeth or limbs trying to take him in and he would run.

But only silence greeted him.

Aki-senpai invited him in with a nod of his head. Natsume gulped, gripping the sling of his messenger bag tighter as he stepped through the threshold.

The place smelled of dust and rust and the lingering scent of cup noodles. Sleek gray walls surrounded him with a single lamp hanging down the center of the room, swaying in the gentle breeze entering through the door. He spotted shelves stacked with thick books and a scatter of various objects and boxes on a nearby table. A used mattress on one side and at the center was a rickety table where two of the four people present played a game of shogi.

“All right, break it up, guys!” Aki-senpai said. He slapped the back of the guy playing the game. Big, muscled, with blonde hair and piercings on his ear.

“Go away,” the guy who looked like a delinquent said, waving his hand to ward Aki-senpai off. “We’re in the middle of the game!”

“We’re down to five people and all you do is play shogi.”

“What’s wrong with that?” the delinquent’s opponent, a girl with a red checkered shirt and glasses, said. Her hand moved and slammed a shogi piece on the board. “Ha!” The delinquent stared wide-eyed.

Aki-senpai sighed. “What’s _wrong_ , Aoi, is that we’re gonna be shut down if we don’t get any new members.”

Stretching her arms over her head, the girl called Aoi said, “No one wants to join us.”

“Well, I brought someone.”

Natsume started, his feet taking an involuntary step back, as four pairs of eyes suddenly looked up and found him by the threshold. Their surprise told him enough that they hadn’t seen any new members for years. What had started as simple curiosity was slowly turning into regret and Natsume hoped they wouldn’t force him to join. He didn’t even know what these people actually do. Exorcism? Or simply studying the unseen? But judging from the dust collecting on the shelves, he doubted any of them actually dealt in Occult Study.

The delinquent eyed him with scrutiny as he leaned back on his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “You _really_ wanna join?”

Natsume blinked. What should he say? No? That he was only looking around? For one, he hadn’t decided if he wanted to join a club or circle or any of the sort. Even if he had, would he really join an Occult Study when his life was already swarming with _youkai_ —even if these people were only here to hang around with nothing else to do?

“Well he didn’t really say that.” Aki-senpai went to his defense. “I only offered to show him around.”

The delinquent stared at him before clicking his tongue in irritation. Leaning over the table once more, he picked up another shogi piece and moved it across the board. “Don’t go dragging people here, Chiba.”

Aki-senpai apologized. “But you still should act more like a club member," he added with a reprimanding tone. "This is why no one wants to join.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the reason why,” another girl said. She had been sitting on the mattress throughout the entire exchange, scrolling through her phone lazily, and now she fell onto her back with not much care on the world.

Their interest in him dwindled once they knew that Natsume wasn’t here to join. Aoi and the delinquent were completely absorbed in their shogi game, forgetting about him entirely. The girl on the phone ignored Aki-senpai as he tried to explain their need for members. Only one paid attention—the final boy standing by the shogi players, who had been just as absorbed in the game as the players themselves when Natsume and Aki-senpai entered. A boy roughly around his senpai’s age, with jet-black hair falling over gray eyes.

Their eyes met.

A sickening feeling rose from the pit of his stomach as those eyes seemed to suck him in.

 _Natsume_.

Natsume looked with a start. Aki-senpai stood in front of him, still wearing that easy-going grin. He had called his name.

“So, what do you think, Natsume-kun?” he asked. Natsume blinked, feeling a lump rise at the back of his throat. His heart raced, his fingers felt clammy. A high-pitched ringing tone filled his ears. Aki-senpai seemed to notice the change, because he drew his brows in concern and asked, "Are you all right?" His voice sounded so far away. 

Natsume blinked again and the feeling slowly dissipated, as though it had never happened. The bitterness he had tasted in his mouth fade away and his ears returned to normal. "I'm all right, Senpai,” he managed to say. But he still didn't feel well, so he excused himself for the day.

*******

“You’re late!”

Nyanko-sensei was sitting on Taki’s lap with a frown and a glare when Natsume finally reached the cafeteria. Tanuma and Taki looked up from one of the round tables.

“Nyanko-sensei? What are you doing here?” Natsume asked.

The cat looked away with an irritated huff.

“I found him coming out of the bushes near your building, Natsume-kun,” Taki said. “You didn’t come so we looked for you.”

“Did you go somewhere?” Tanuma asked.

“Sorry.” Natsume took a seat between them. “A senpai tried to recruit me for his club.”

Tanuma tilted his head to the side. “What club?”

“Occult Study?”

His friends stared at him in the same disbelief Natsume had felt the moment Aki-senpai told him the name of his club. Who could blame them? Neither of them had expected a club like that to exist. He wanted to laugh, but his body felt drained and heavy and all he wanted was to sleep.

“You look pale,” Tanuma remarked, concerned.

Natsume tried to wave him off, to smile and say that he was fine, but his shoulders slumped before he could manage. His chest felt heavy, his breathing labored. Tanuma and Taki jumped to their feet in alarm.

“Did you meet an _ayakashi,_ Natsume?” Nyanko-sensei had leaped onto the table between them, his gaze narrowed and hard.

_Ayakashi?_

He tried to remember, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know. Natsume shook his head, listless. Nyanko-sensei’s gaze could have drilled a hole in him if he had the power to. 

Taki looked at Nyanko-sensei, then Natsume, and pursed her lips. “Anyway, let’s get you home first," she said. She pushed away from her chair and pulled Natsume to his feet. Tanuma carried his bag and supported Natsume on his other side. Sensei trailed just a few feet behind them, his eyes never leaving Natsume.

*******

The three of them lived in the same small apartment complex near campus, on the same floor, only several doors apart. Tanuma took the key from Natsume and opened the door to Natsume’s apartment, where they shuffled him inside and lay him on his bed.

Natsume’s head swam and pounded, sweat covering his brow and neck. He heard distinct voices, whispers—Tanuma and Taki discussing whether they should stay in Natsume’s apartment until he seemed better.

“Good thing tomorrow’s a weekend,” Tanuma said.

Natsume went in and out of stupor. At one moment he was walking in darkness, his body sluggish as he tried to find a way out. At another, he heard his friends’ voices drifting in and out. His nose picked up a scent of food—chicken or some sort. His friends talked about school works or interrogated Nyanko-sensei on what he meant by _meeting an ayakashi_.

“ _Why_ were you at school, Sensei?” Tanuma asked.

“I was checking it out,” Sensei replied through a mouthful of whatever dinner his friends had gotten him.

“Sensei!” Taki probed.

It was a while before Natsume heard him say, “I felt a presence, all right, and I followed it.”

“And it led you to the school?”

Natsume fought in vain to keep his consciousness. It went under again before he could hear what Nyanko-sensei had to say.

One time, he heard a voice, a child’s, crying in the distance. Another time, he felt a heavy lump on his stomach before someone took it off him with a reprimanding tone in her voice.

_Her._

When Natsume opened his eyes, he was standing in a clearing. A small forest clearing where a patch of dappled sunlight pooled on the ground. The foliage around him was thick and green, the wind brushing his face cool to the touch.

A quiet sob drew his attention and Natsume found a small boy crouching against a tree, hugging his scraped and bleeding knees to his chest.

Natsume blinked and a woman materialized there. Her long brown hair fell to her waist. She wore a green floral dress that reached to her calf. Natsume recognized her, though he had never seen her outside of her school uniform.

“Are you all right?” Reiko asked the boy. She looked older, somewhat calmer.

The boy looked up. Dark hair fell over gray eyes. He looked familiar though Natsume couldn’t remember who or where he had seen him.

“Who’re you?” the boy asked.

Reiko crouched in front of him. “I’m Reiko. You are?”

The boy’s eyes widened at that. Natsume heard shuffles of tiny feet and rustles in the trees. Several pairs of eyes looked down at them from above—tiny _youkai_ drawn by their curiosity.

“You’re Reiko?” the boy asked.

“I am.”

“You don’t look so bad.”

Reiko tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”

“They say a powerful human who’s been terrorizing the _ayakashi_ on the other side of the mountain has been seen around here lately,” the boy said. “They say the human is called Reiko Natsume.”

Reiko stared at him for a silent moment, before she snorted and burst into laughter—the sort of laughter that shook her to her core. Natsume had never seen her laugh so freely like that. The boy could only stare, transfixed.

“What’s your name?”

The _youkai_ shook his head. “I don’t have a name.”

Reiko let out a quiet breath as she stood up and brushed her hands on her skirt. “Those scraps look painful,” she said. “I know someone who can patch you up.” And then she looked at him with a thin smile and offered him her hand. “Let’s go.”

*******

Natsume woke up to a different darkness. Not the pressing, suffocating darkness he had trodden in-between dream and reality, but warmer, and friendlier, where he could see his ceiling past the initial darkness his eyes perceived. His clothes felt damp, his body sticky. His eyes were still heavy but the pounding in his head was gone.

A dream. Of an older Reiko.

Natsume wouldn’t have had these dreams if he hadn’t encountered a _youkai._ But his mind was exhausted to retrace recent events where he could have met one, so he let the thought be. Instead, he looked to the side, where he heard a soft rhythmic breathing of someone asleep. Sensei was there, curled up beside him. He could just make out the outline of Taki sleeping on the couch and Tanuma on the table by the kitchen counter.

Natsume shifted on his bed, trying to sit up without waking anyone. His stomach grumbled. He needed to eat. Hopefully, there were leftovers from whatever dinner his friends had.

Just as he drew his feet off his blanket, he felt it, a stare from the corner of the room. He looked up to find a pair of gray eyes looking straight at him. Natsume jerked in surprise. The pair of eyes took a step forward and a head materialized, followed by a body and its limbs.

The boy with the dark hair from his dream. But older. _His_ age.

Natsume caught himself. Could a _youkai_ age?

“Natsume-sama,” the _youkai_ began and Natsume was again struck with a familiarity that he had seen this boy somewhere.

Natsume’s head pounded once more, like a painful strike of a hammer to his temple. He grunted, his hand flying to the side of his head, and the _youkai_ froze.

“Natsume-sama, I do not wish you harm.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Haru.”

“What do you want?”

The _youkai_ —Haru—shook his head. “I have something to tell you—something to show—but I cannot state that here. The barrier your guardian has placed around you is strong. I cannot stay here long.”

“Then—”

“If you would, Natsume-sama, there is a place near here. A store. _Old Roots._ You can find me there.”

A shift on his bed. Nyanko-sensei blinked sleepy eyes at him. He mumbled his name, eyes narrowing.

The _youkai_ stared at the cat for a good second. “I will wait for you there,” he said quickly right as Nyanko-sensei’s eyes flew open and he leaped onto his feet, bright white light bursting from the mark on his head.

Haru had vanished.

*******

“You and your pests,” Nyanko-sensei grumbled later that night. His friends had woken up from the ruckus Sensei had created and now Taki was heating up the porridge she had made for Natsume, who was sitting on the table being scolded by a cat. “I can’t even get a wink of peaceful sleep around you.”

“He said he didn’t mean any harm,” Natsume tried, only to be treated by one of Sensei’s painful glares. He had explained the gist of what happened, and that the _youkai_ called Haru wanted to meet with him.

“We can go with you,” Tanuma offered.

“No!” Natsume and Nyanko-sensei said simultaneously. Tanuma jerked.

Sensei clicked his tongue. “I don’t need another human to look after. One is already a handful.”

“What if something happened?” Tanuma said.

“Well _you_ wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Should we call Natori-san?” Taki asked from the stove.

“Don’t,” Natsume said. He could already picture the actor’s face. That strained smile on his picture-perfect face. One lecture was enough. Natsume didn’t need another one.

“Well at least he could be more sensible than you sometimes.”

Natsume frowned, though there was nothing he could say to that.

Taki turned off the stove and brought Natsume his porridge. It warmed him up, driving away the last of his fever. None of them initiated another debate as they let him eat, knowing there was nothing they could say to change his mind.

When morning came, Natsume walked through town with Nyanko-sensei in search of a store called _Old Roots._ Tanuma and Taki had looked at him with concern and they made him promise not to do anything rash and to come back if he felt faint again. Natsume, in return, had promised to be careful.

But no matter how far they walked, and how many people he asked, no one had heard the name of that store before, to the point Nyanko-sensei started grumbling about not to trust what _youkai_ said.

Natsume listened to him bicker for a while, but as they turned around a corner, a familiar face entered his line of sight. Aki-senpai was sweeping the pavement in front of a store, the words on the nameplate spelled _Chiba’s Collectibles_.

As though drawn by supernatural instinct, Aki-senpai looked up and their eyes met.

“Natsume-kun?!” He sounded surprised, though maybe not as surprised as Natsume felt over this weird coincidence. He nodded his greeting as he approached his senpai. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for a store.” He paused, glancing down at Nyanko-sensei, who seemed to silently tell him to do what he needed to do. “Something called _Old Roots_?”

Aki-senpai tilted his head to the side. “You mean our store?”

Natsume blinked, uncomprehending. He looked up at the storefront sign again, and indeed, it was called _Chiba’s Collectibles._

“Ah,” Aki-senpai said, following his line of sight. “Yeah, that’s what we’ve been calling it since Grandma passed away. _Old Roots_ was the name Grandma gave it.”

“I see.”

The store looked like an antique store. The wooden front door looked ancient. The name looked to be written in archaic, cursive calligraphy. On the window display were china plates and old fans, with pots and vases and a maneki neko doll at the center. 

Aki-senpai opened the front door with a rattle, inviting him in. Natsume stared at the open doorway for a while, then willed himself to enter the store, Sensei following behind.

The store smelled of old and aging wood. It reminded him of the mountains at the back of his hometown, where he would find his _youkai_ friends gathered on daylights. Natsume could see various objects on the shelves lining the walls—from bowls and pots to dolls and paintings. Mannequins stood in a corner wearing ancient Japanese armors, their swords and spears and bows hanging on the wall. Glass cases dividing the room into aisles contained smaller trinkets like hairpins and scrolls and watches.

A small sitting area stood at the back of the store, at the corner across from the cash register counter, between a set of stairs leading to a second floor and a door leading to a backroom.

“What brings you here, Natsume-kun?” Aki-senpai asked after offering Natsume a seat.

“Um—” What should he say? He had thought the store belonged to Haru, or other _youkai_ , or someone with the Sight like an exorcist or people who dealt with magical objects. He hadn’t expected it to belong to a normal human, much less someone he knew.

“Don’t tell me,” Aki-senpai said before Natsume had formulated his answer. He suddenly leaned closed, his eyes glinting in understanding as a grin stretched across his face. “Did you really want to join our club?”

Natsume stared, dumbstruck. For a moment, he wondered what his senpai meant, before the events of the day before returned to his mind. The club at the disused storage room in the middle of a copse of trees—the dusted books and shelves, and the people playing shogi. He had completely forgotten about it. 

“Then again,” Aki-senpai went on without waiting for his reply, “you wouldn’t have known I work here.” The thought made him pause, and he leaned against his broom. His eyes narrowed as he stared Natsume down. “How _did_ you learn about _Old Roots_?”

 _I heard it from a_ youkai, Natsume wanted to say, but would his senpai even believe him?

But then Aki-senpai said something that froze him on the spot: “Did Haru tell you?”

Natsume whipped his head up and met Aki-senpai’s stern and unwavering gaze. He hadn’t heard wrong.

“Do you know Haru, Senpai?” he asked.

“Of course. He’s our _shiki_.”

 _Shiki_.

The unexpected use of the word rendered Natsume speechless. Aki-senpai had a _shiki_. 

“How did you know Haru, Natsume-kun?” Aki-senpai went on.

Natsume shook his head. “I don’t know him.”

“Then why was he looking for you?”

“What?” That was news to him. He looked to the ground, but Nyanko-sensei was nowhere to be found. The cat probably knew about it. That was why he had been at school the other day.

Aki-senpai’s lips pressed to a thin line, but his eyes stayed on Natsume as he leaned his broom against the wall and took a seat across from him. “He came to me one day and asked me about a boy called Natsume. He told me, you go to our college. I said I don’t know him. He asked me to find out about you.”

Did that mean Aki-senpai approached him not because of the club but because a _youkai_ asked him to?

The thought made him pause.

Had Haru been in that clubroom?

There were five people—six including him. Among them were Aki-senpai, Aoi and the delinquent playing shogi, the girl on the phone, and—

Just as the thought entered his mind, Natsume heard footsteps coming in from the backroom, and a familiar voice he had heard the night before reached his ears.

“Aki, don’t be like that.”

Natsume turned and found the boy with the black hair and gray eyes standing over the threshold—the person he had seen in the clubroom yesterday, who had been standing over the shogi players and watching them play. The person who had stared intently at him, causing the sickening feeling in his stomach.

The _youkai_ , Haru, smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Natsume-sama, for coming to you so intrusively.”

From across the table, Aki-senpai scoffed. “You call _him_ with honorifics but not me?”

“You told me not to, Aki,” Haru said.

Aki-senpai frowned. They stared each other down, not entirely in animosity—Natsume couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Aki-senpai was the first to break eye contact and sighed. He stood up from his chair. “Take your time. The shop won’t be open for another couple hours.” And then he went over to the backroom with a promise to bring tea.

Natsume was halfway up his chair, halfway saying, “You don’t have to, Senpai—” but Aki-senpai had already disappeared.

“Don’t worry about him, Natsume-sama,” the _youkai_ said, his eyes still trailing over his master’s back. “He’s only feeling somewhat rivaled.”

“Rivaled?!”

Haru chuckled. “He’ll be over it at the end of the day.”

That didn’t ease his anxiety though Natsume had no room to argue. Haru sat on the seat Aki-senpai had vacated and Natsume followed him, glancing sideways toward the backroom once. The _youkai_ noticed this.

“It’s the first time Aki meets someone his age with spiritual power,” Haru explained. “All he’s known were his immediate family, and several patrons who come looking for magical objects—yes, the antique store is only a front for the magical objects they deal with,” he added when Natsume raised his brows. “The rivalry he feels may stem from what pride he has as a _youkai_ specialist—though Aki isn’t a particularly prideful person. Or…” Haru paused, laughing quietly under his breath. “Well, he might be afraid of me leaving him to follow you.”

Natsume blinked, uncomprehending. “Why would he think that?”

Haru looked at him and Natsume noticed the faraway look in his eyes and the longing in his smile. “Because, Natsume-sama,” he finally said, “You are Reiko’s grandson.”

Haru confirmed that Reiko was his former master, though Reiko had claimed she had never bound him to her. “She named me, you see, saying the name was gift,” he said with a light-hearted chuckle. “I don’t think she knew very well the power of naming a _youkai_. Especially with a power like hers.”

“Hmph, sounds very much like the Reiko I know,” Nyanko-sensei said. The cat, who apparently had been exploring the store, had finally joined them. He had looked at Haru with narrowed eyes and Haru had nodded his head in meek greeting.

“I’m sorry for causing an alarm,” Haru had said.

Nyanko-sensei had only grunted, before taking his place on the chair by Natsume’s side.

Haru chuckled. “Yes, a peculiar human she was—Reiko.” His voice was so soft, so gentle, as though speaking of something precious. But then his eyes grew dark and drawn and his smile was tinged with sorrow.

“The moment Reiko died—I felt it—like a snap in the bond I had come to cherish over the years since our meeting.

“It was an order,” he went on. “The only thing stopping me from going after her was her order for me to stay behind and protect Aki’s family.”

Natsume let the thought sink in. “Then, does the contract still stand?”

Haru gauged his response, before saying, “I believe it does. I thought it was gone the moment Reiko died, but apparently, I was still connected by a sliver of a thread to her daughter. But her power was too weak, our bond too thin, that I never felt it. Until several years after Aki was born that the contract snapped into place again.”

“So,” Natsume said after a while, “if I were to order you—”

“Then I would be compelled to follow.”

The depth of the situation finally dawning on him, Natsume understood why Aki-senpai had acted the way he had. For the blood relative of a former master to appear, carrying a long-forgotten contract…

“Had none of Aki-senpai’s family ever renewed the bond?” he asked. Because Natori had told him once, that the contract could be inherited, or even made new, by someone with strong power.

Haru shook his head. “Chieko, Aki’s grandmother, never did, in respect to Reiko’s wishes. While in Aki’s parents’ case—I might have stayed long enough that both of them have forgotten I was not bound to them.”

“So you stayed here of your volition?” Nyanko-sensei asked. “Not bound to anyone but your own will?”

Haru nodded, prompting Nyanko-sensei to scoff. “Silly. You’ve attached yourself to humans who would be gone in a blink of an eye.”

“I could say the same thing to you,” Haru said evenly. “Isn’t that why you’re here? Putting such a strong barrier no other _ayakashi_ could come and harm him.”

“ _I_ am the master in our relationship, not the other way around.”

“Semantics. Have you never gone to his aid then, without a thought of who’s the master and who’s the servant—with your heart roaring when you see him hurt?”

Nyanko-sensei’s eyes glinted under the light. His voice had dropped several octaves when he spoke next. “He is my prey and mine alone. I will not let other _ayakashi_ eat him.”

They stared at each other, the air between them thick and charged with electricity. Natsume wasn’t sure what was happening. It was not the same sort of exchange he had seen between Nyanko-sensei and other _shiki_. A fight would break, and not just any skirmishes his guardian had had before.

Natsume touched his pelt. He felt Sensei start, so soft he could have missed it, but the bristle that had slowly begun along his spine died down. Nyanko-sensei was the first to break eye contact, looking away with an irritated huff.

“We’re not so different, you and I,” Haru went on, “when all we wish is to keep our humans safe.”

Nyanko-sensei didn’t say anything.

Natsume stared at him for a couple moments before looking up to meet Haru’s eyes. “What did you wish to show me, Haru?”

The _youkai_ looked at him again, before shifting his gaze toward his laced fingers on the tabletop. “Reiko met Chieko shortly after she arrived in the city,” he began. “She already had a daughter by then. And her body had already begun to break.”

* * *

_The moon was low. Reiko lay on her side. Blood trickled down the corner of her lips as her chest heaved with difficulty. Her child. Where was her child? She tried to look but her eyelids were heavy. How did she get here? All she remembered was traveling down the hill, her hand grasping the small hand of her daughter’s, before a coughing fit shook her, and she stumbled. Her sides ached, her head pounded._

_Had it all been a dream? Had she dreamed of having a daughter and dreaming of a future in peace?_

_Or had her daughter abandoned her like everyone else in her life? A good-for-nothing mother like her. She couldn’t even raise her child. She couldn’t give her a proper house or a proper meal like everyone else._

_A light shone above her. A hand, bony and wrinkled, grasped her face, cupping her chin._ Tsk, tsk, _it went._ You have death on your door, child. You don’t have long.

_Reiko fought to open her eyes._

A curse has bound itself to you. A forbidden magic you have done.

_The wrinkled hand touched her forehead._

A cherished object.

 _Another_ tsk _. The hand caressed her face, and when it spoke, its voice was soft._

Poor child. No amount of healing spells can save you—unless you return those which you have taken.

*******

“A curse,” Natsume echoed, interrupting Haru’s story. The heart of his heart already knew the answer, even before Haru nodded and said,

“The Book of Friends.”

_Forbidden magic._

Natsume’s mind brought him back to a dim room in Natori’s place. He had asked the exorcist’s help to reseal a _youkai_ , and after it had been done, the conversation had taken a turn to the rules in place for exorcism.

 _When an exorcist makes a contract of mastery with an_ ayakashi,Natori had said, _they should never bind their real name. Some of the most dangerous can even curse people who aren’t involved._

“That book bound their true names to her life force,” Haru went on. “Not only had it taken a toll to her body, it was something that should never have been done, and the act, by itself, cursed her.”

*******

_That night, her daughter, who had gone in search of help, brought Chieko to where her mother lay. Chieko was, in fact, skilled in the arts of healing, but even Chieko could only slow the curse’s progression._

_Haru met Reiko not long afterwards and stayed with her long after she named him. It didn’t take long for him to find out about her illness._

_She lived with Chieko’s family for a couple years—said the medicine worked well. Her body hadn’t hurt as much. But sometimes in the middle of the night, when she thought everyone was asleep, Haru would see her body bent, her hair matted with sweat, as cough after cough took over her body. And when she pulled her hand from her mouth, he’d seen them covered in blood._

_Still, she stayed. Haru suspected the reason was because Chieko and her husband had been so welcoming that when it would have been time for her to leave, she’d find herself saying, ‘just one more day. Let me stay here just one more day.’ Then one day became one week, and one week became one month, one month became one year._

_Until one day, the curse began to spread, and not just in her own body._

_“I’m leaving, Haru,” Reiko said one night in their room. The light had gone out. Everyone was fast asleep. Rain poured outside, masking their conversation._

_Haru shook his head. “Chieko said not to leave.”_

_Reiko laughed under her breath. “I don’t live by Chieko’s rules.”_

_Haru frowned. He’d heard them earlier, downstairs in the kitchen, talking in hushed voices. The curse was spreading, and not just in her own body. Chieko’s son had gotten sick with a high fever and coughing fit that had lasted for more than two weeks._

_“You don’t know if it’s because of the curse,” Haru argued._

_“You don’t know if it’s not,” Reiko said. “The doctors didn’t find anything wrong with him, yet he’s been bedridden for weeks. Don’t tell me it’s not because of me.”_

_“It’s not!”_

_Reiko put a finger to her lips. She didn’t want to wake the others, but Haru didn’t care. Let him wake the others. Let the others put some sense in this human’s head._

_“Then let me come with you.”_

_“I can’t. I need you to stay.”_

_He had been ready for that._ Please take care of Haru for me. _That’s what Reiko had asked Chieko. She had meant to leave him._

 _“You_ need _me to protect you, Reiko.”_

_“I can take care of myself.”_

_“How?” he countered. “You’re halfway to the underworld and now you’re leaving in the middle of the night with a child and nowhere to go._ How _can you take care of yourself?”_

 _Reiko gave him one of her infuriating smiles that meant_ enough _—that asked him not to ask questions and leave her be. But how could he? How could he when she was his master and him her servant—when ever since the day Reiko named him, his sole purpose had been to protect her?_

_“I need you to protect Chieko and her family.”_

_“They’re strong!”_

_“Not strong enough.” Reiko’s smile turned wistful; her eyes drawn. “Chieko saved me, Haru. She accepted me when no one ever had. She welcomed me to her home, and her family, and now look what I’ve brought her.” Her laugh was self-deprecating and it grated in his ears._

It’s not your fault _, he wanted to say, but he knew it was a vain attempt when her heart was already set._

_“Where are you going?” he asked instead, though his heart ached in his chest._

_“I don’t know,” she said. “Find a peaceful place to settle down? Away from the eyes and ears of humans and youkai.” Not much of an answer, but that only told him the extent of her plan._

_“Will you do it for me?” she asked him after a while. “Make sure Chieko’s child lives and none of my illnesses get to them? Make sure they’re happy, and healthy, and no harm comes to them? You’re the only one I can ask of this.”_

_He couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to. A final order. She had never claimed mastery of him, but Haru still found himself following her._

_So he nodded, and she smiled, brighter this time. She pulled him to her and pressed her lips to his forehead._

_“When you meet my grandson, please tell him I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Tell him I’m sorry I’ve left him with such a huge burden.”_

* * *

Natsume opened his eyes to dim light. A quiet stillness enveloped his surroundings. He smelled the scent of incenses, like the ones he would find in temples or rituals. He was lying on his back on a soft mattress. His fingers tingled as they slowly regained their senses. His blurry eyes sharpened, and he noticed the wooden beams on the ceiling. His ears picked up a soft drizzle against the window outside.

“Natsume-sama?”

The familiar voice drew his attention and Haru entered his line of sight—the older version of the twelve-year-old boy he had only seen moments ago. He sat cross-legged beside him, gray eyes staring at him.

Natsume blinked back the tears he hadn’t realized he had shed, covering his eyes with the back of his hand as he took a deep, shaking breath. Haru’s emotions from the memory had been so raw. He wondered if the sadness he felt then was his own or the _youkai_ 's. It truly felt as though he had been there, trying to stop Reiko from leaving.

“I didn’t know _youkai_ could grow,” was the first thing Natsume said.

Silence, before Haru let out a soft laughter under his breath. “I started changing my appearance ever since Aki was born,” he said. “I wanted to grow with him.”

Natsume’s lips tugged into a smile as he took another shuddering breath. He could see her behind his eyelids, her face gaunt, her cheeks hollow. Reiko was thin. Too thin. And weak. And frail. He wondered where the bright spark that had lived in infamy in the memories of _youkais_ had gone.

And the little girl sleeping beside her. His mother. Barely six or seven years old.

He could see Reiko in front of him then, staring at him with that same sad and resigned expression she had given Haru.

 _I’m sorry I left you with a huge burden_.

“Do you know where she’d gone?” he asked the _youkai_.

“No,” Haru said quietly. “When I asked, all she said was a mountain she wanted to see one last time.”

A mountain. There were a lot of mountains in Japan.

A peaceful place to settle down. Away from the eyes and ears of humans and _youkai_.

A tree.

The door slid open.

Natsume uncovered his eyes, letting his arm fall onto his chest. Nyanko-sensei came, followed by Aki-senpai carrying a tray of steaming soup and a glass of hot green tea. He looked happy to see Natsume awake.

“Do you often faint, Natsume-kun?” he asked, helping Natsume sit up.

“Often?” Nyanko-sensei scoffed from beside the futon. “This guy faints _every time_ an _ayakashi_ does something to him.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Aki-senpai looked at Natsume then, concerned. “I can look up some medicine if you want. We have lots of books dealing with these kinds of stuff.”

“You don’t have to, Senpai,” Natsume said with a small smile.

But Aki-senpai only laughed, waving his hand in dismiss. “Don’t be so stiff. It’s the least I can do.” His lips stretched thinly then, and he dipped his head in apology. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before, Natsume-kun. It’s just…I’ve never met someone my age who can see _youkai_ , and I figured you’re technically his master and all, and…” His voice trailed off, his ears reddening. “Anyway, I’ll find a book that can help you!”

He jumped to his feet and rushed out the door. Aki-senpai was gone before Natsume could even say a word. Haru chuckled beside him.

Natsume glanced at him, then at Sensei, who was pawing the lid off Natsume’s bowl of soup, saying something about eating his meal if Natsume didn’t want it. Natsume imagined what he would do if there ever came a time when Nyanko-sensei would have to leave him for good. Not to another master—as Natsume couldn’t imagine Nyanko-sensei actually having a master—but maybe something else that would draw the cat away from him, never to return.

He didn’t like that.

“Haru,” Natsume said. The _youkai_ looked at him, eyebrow quirking in question. “Would you like me to release you?”

Silence fell, where Haru only stared, eyes blinking in surprise. He hadn’t expected that, it seemed, but Natsume wanted to do it. Reiko was gone. Haru didn’t have any ties with him. An age-old order that had slowly transformed into his own will.

Haru was Aki-senpai’s guardian. There was no denying that.

Natsume felt Nyanko-sensei's stare.

“I’ve done the ritual before,” he added. “I know how to do it.”

Haru gazed at him for another silent moment, before Natsume caught the slight crinkle in his gray eyes, his mouth finally spreading into a small, genuine smile. He bowed.

“Please do, Natsume-sama.” 

**~ END ~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!^^ Please leave kudos/comments if you find this to your liking. I'd love to know what you think :D Thanks!


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